Govt tells President: Reject mercy plea, Dhananjoy should hang

Yesterday, Kalam had remarked that he was waiting for the report and the ‘‘right justice would be done.’’

Legal experts told The Indian Express that the President is bound by the advice of the Council of Ministers. In 1974, the Supreme Court made it clear that except for four matters—pertaining to the formation of the government and to certain powers vested in the President as the Chancellor of the universities—the head of state is bound by the advice of the elected council of ministers.

This means that Dhananjoy Chatterjee will hang 21 days after President Kalam communicates his decision. The West Bengal Home Secretary is on record saying that the state government requires the said period for carrying out the sentence.

Already, the then President rejected the Chatterjee family’s mercy plea in 1994 and the Supreme Court has left the matter to the President for a decision. West Bengal governor Viren Shah has also rejected the clemency petition though the hanging earlier scheduled for June 25 was put on hold by the Centre after the mercy petition was filed by Chatterjee’s wife to President Kalam.

Sources said the Home Ministry’s report makes it very clear that the crime that Chatterjee committed was reprehensible and cannot be pardoned. He was convicted for raping and then murdering Hetal Parikh in her Kolkata apartment on March 5, 1990. The victim had 14 injuries to her body. At that time, Chatterjee was 26 years old and worked as a liftman-cum-caretaker in that building.

While the Left is split over whether Chatterjee should hang, the Home Ministry makes it clear in its report that the culprit was stalking the victim and had even been transferred by his employer after the Parikh family complained against him. The Ministry’s report says that the culprit should have thought about his wife before committing the act rather than get her now to file a mercy petition on his behalf.

Although former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu wants the death sentence to be commuted to life imprisonment of 14 years—Chatterjee has already served this time—Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya and his wife are in favour of Chatterjee being executed. Hetul’s family, now in Mumbai, as well as her school, Welland Gouldsmith, have also said that Chatterjee should be hanged as per the court’s decision.